1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laminated ceramic electronic component, and in particular, a laminated ceramic electronic component in which a plurality of functional portions are included within one component main body in a manner similar to an array-type laminated ceramic electronic component.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, as miniaturization of electronic devices including a mobile phone and a portable audio player has been advanced, miniaturization of mounting substrates to be mounted in electronic devices has been advanced.
In addition, along with the miniaturization of the mounting substrates, mounting areas in the mounting substrates have also become small. Therefore, a request for downsizing an electronic component to be mounted in the mounting substrate has become strong, and an array-type electronic component has been frequently used where a plurality of electronic component elements are integrated into a single chip.
Using the array-type electronic component, it is possible to reduce not only a mounting space but also a mounting cost, compared with a case where a plurality of electronic components are mounted.
As a representative example of the array-type electronic component, in particular, a laminated ceramic electronic component, a capacitor array may be cited. In a usual capacitor array, for example, four external electrodes are formed in one side surface, and four capacitors are extracted between the external electrodes facing each other.
Usually, a plurality of capacitors extracted from a capacitor array are often equal to one another. However, for convenience of circuit design, in some case, it is also desired that these capacitors are different from one another. In response to this, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-257785, it has been proposed that, by causing the areas of internal electrodes configuring individual capacitor portions to be different from one another, capacitors that are different from one another are extracted.
However, since, in a structure described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-257785, internal electrodes whose number corresponds to the number of capacitors to be extracted are disposed on a common ceramic layer, the structure has a limitation in increasing the area of one internal electrode.